


Drip, Drip

by skeletonsmama



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Brendon is the monster, Gen, One-Shot, set in the 1920's just to be clear, sorry this is so creepy omg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 19:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletonsmama/pseuds/skeletonsmama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan stays back late after a performance one day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drip, Drip

**Author's Note:**

> Creative essay? Did you mean AU fanfiction? I wrote this for school last year, hence the word count and lack of additional padding or shipiness. Sorry for formatting omg I'll fix it up eventually if I get the chance. Other than that, hope you enjoy!

Drip. Drip.  
  
Ryan ignored the leaky tap as he wiped the stage make up off his face, exhausted after another night’s performance. The other dancers had gone home already; him, he hung around, preferring the quiet of the old theatre. The old loneliness that seeped through the walls, crept into every nook, every cranny, that was his comfort.  
The dull glow of an oil lantern illuminated the broken mirror, cracks sending distortions across his face. Doesn’t matter, he thought, I’ve seen enough of my face already.  
The resounding echo of water running through the pipes made Ryan look up, startled.  
“Pipes, just the goddamn pipes.”  
He went back to cleaning himself up, a worried line added to his brow.  
Tonight had been a good show, he thought to himself quietly. Fifty patrons.  Fifty _paying_ patrons.  Most nights they struggled to fill the front row. Fifty people, Jesus that was a lot.

There was a sudden boom, heavy weight hitting concrete and Ryan jumped, upsetting the vanity and sending make up flying.  
“Shit,” he murmured, leaning down to pick rolling bottles of liner and shadow up off the floor. He wouldn’t let himself focus on that noise. No. The stories weren’t true. Couldn’t be true.  
Yet the seed of doubt was flowering in his mind, uneasiness coming hand in hand with paranoia. Outside his sanctuary of light was only blackness, hiding any number of sinister things. Stories swapped among performers whilst getting ready for a show flitted to his mind, each time being quashed by sense more and more slowly.  
 _‘They say he comes at night’_  
 _‘Made of bone with melting flesh’_  
 _‘Eyes so black that they tarnish your very soul’_  
He’d never cared for this stream of converse before.  Just overheard, snippets reaching uninterested ears. Now they were the fore-front in his mind  
 _‘First owner of the club, stabbed to death by an angry customer. We like to keep ‘em happy now though don’t we…’_  
Ryan desperately tried not to think of how alone he was, underground among the maze of rooms and corridors.  
The creaking floorboard sent him over the edge. It was only light. Only for a second. But undeniably there. Feeling his heart begin to flutter, Ryan gave into to his instincts. He had to go. Had to go now.  
Exhaustion forgotten with adrenaline pumping hard and fast through his veins he neglected the rest of his cool down process, grabbing the lantern to leave.  
In his haste the flame blew out, darkness closing in hard and fast, swallowing him up.

“Try to find me now,” he thought in the circumstance, trying desperately to slow the hammering of his heart against his rib cage. It was so loud; he was surprised it wasn’t bouncing emptily off the walls.

_Tha-thump._

_Tha-thump._

_Tha-thump._

Then it came again. The gently squeak of the un-oiled door, a light touch on a floorboard and the whisper, working its way into Ryan’s brain and sticking there.  
“ _Gotttttt youuuuuuuuuuuuu.”_ Jeering, drawn out words, crushing the sliver of hope that still remained that it was indeed, all in his head.  
He felt a glide of icy fingers on his neck. Ryan stood stock-still, petrified, while the fingers, like ice, like a breath of death, tapped gently on his neck, brushing his hair ever so lightly.  
 _Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god,_ was the only comprehensible thought running through his mind.  
Cold breath on his ear and then, ‘God can’t help you now silly boy, silly silly boy.”  
The lantern flashed on suddenly, both blinding Ryan and illuminating the…the _thing._

In front of him stood a man of about 22. He gave off an eerie glow as his lips pulled into a sinister smile. Mime make-up adorned his face, vibrant red circles on the cheeks and three lines dropping down from each eye. More red was smeared on one half of his face, a shining, sticky red that gave the appearance of blood, bleeding from his eyes and mouth.  
Ryan covered his mouth in horror, backing into the shattered mirror. The thing reached up and grabbed its face, the skin seeming to melt between its fingers, seeping through the gapes, revealing a shining skull beneath. As the thing finished, half of its skin was left on the face, leaving a grotesque combination of skull and flesh, skin and bone. Ryan looked into the empty socket and felt a wave nausea sweep over him.

He watched in terror as the thing took a step towards him, black ichor now dripping from the empty eye. It reached out to Ryan with a skeletal hand, gripping onto his arm

 _There are stories,_ it whispered, _stories so sinister most think them impossible to be true. Yet that is me. The impossible…_  
Your substance means nothing. Relax and allow me and there shall be no pain. Struggle and I can harm you in ways your mind won’t even be able to comprehend. Open your mind and your soul to be drained. Just let it go. Let it go. Let it go…  
  
Ryan felt himself grow tired. Terribly tired. Tired of fighting, of being afraid. Tired of life.  
 _That’s it little boy,_ it whispered, _just let it all go._  
He felt a chill come over him. Holding him, coaxing him into letting go. He collapsed against the thing, moaning in pain. He was so tired. Too tired. It hurt, being this tired, ripped through him like waves of fire.  
So he let go. Consciousness slipped from him and he fell further and further from life. Ryan was barely aware of his life energy being consumed into the demon, his soul binding with the blackness the other’s was.    
Good little boy, it whispered, a hand gently stroking Ryan’s head as his body convulsed, trying to make up for an empty mind. Drawing a dagger out of its pocket, it sliced along Ryan’s throat, ending the still surviving body’s pain.  
Ryan stopped moving, now a dead, empty corpse.  The thing hauled the body up into the pipes that ran across the top of the room, Ryan’s lightless eyes stared unblinking at the floor. The blood leaked slowly from his neck.  
Drip. Drip.


End file.
